io6 



THE MUSEUM. 



every naturalist could see it for him 

 self. I am sure there is no student of 

 nature but will excuse the enthusiasm 

 which prompted me to write at once 

 to a friend, that "he must set the min- 

 ister down as a horse- jockey, on being 

 informed that he was now the proud 

 possessor of the most numerous drove 

 of colts ever owned by one man tlie 

 world over." Using my best judg- 

 ment, for owing to the mazy motion 

 of this tiny throng, counting was out 

 of the question, I set the number 

 down as not far from one thousand. 

 Each measured from five to six lines 

 in length. Very minute creatures, 

 surely, when one considers how large 

 portion is taken up by the tail, whicii 

 oigan was of but little more than 

 thread like dimensions. W'e might 

 suppose it would require a few da\s 

 for the young Hippo to find out the 

 remarkable monkey-like endowment of 

 the tail. Not so, only look at what 

 my own eyes beheld many a time, 

 when a "stampede" of these little 

 colts was going on, although they 

 were but one day old. There came 

 two little Hippos, each swimming at a 

 direction of right angles to that of the 

 other. Just at the point of passing, 

 one lasso-like, whips his caudal ex- 

 tremity round that of his fellow, who 

 of course in like manner, returns the 

 caudal compliment, which to speak 

 technically, acts as a "double lock. ' 

 Of course both pull, and by a natural 

 law, the force is exerted in exactly op- 

 posite directions, and the right angel 

 is resolved into a straight line. It is 

 but poor head-way they make, nor 

 does it mend the matter much, that a 

 third little fellow comes giddily on, and 

 switching his tail, takes a hitch at that 

 precise point in space where the other 

 two met. Now a triple force is exert- 

 ed, and the effect is, with two straight 

 lines, to project three obtuse angles. 

 And so the three toiled on, obtusely la- 

 boring /'// stata quo. But a droller 

 sight is that of yonder juvenile Lopho- 

 brancli, who seems to be of somewhat 

 beligerent pfoclivites as he is leading 



by the nose a weaker member of his 

 own species, having with his caudal 

 extremity noosed him on the snout. 

 These funny antics though oft repeat- 

 ed, are of short duration, as the par- 

 ties soon have to rest from sheer ex- 

 haustion. 



On the fifth of October the last of 

 my little Hippos died. 



In the matter of foetal sustenance, 

 I find a remarkable marsupial analogy 

 in the Hippocampus. The pouch of 

 the Kangaroo and the Opossum con- 

 tains teats with which, by true lacta- 

 tion, the }oung are nourished until 

 fully formed. Nor is the embryonal 

 sack of the Sea Horse a mere recep- 

 tacle ( r nest, for the hatching of the 

 eggs, the fish does in and by the 

 pouch, supply nourishment to the 

 growing young. The mass of fry on 

 the day of its extrasion is certainly in 

 bulk several times greater than that of 

 the original egg mass. We know that 

 the bear during hibernation lives upon 

 the fat acquired the previous season. 

 During a journey that requires abstin- 

 ence from food, the well conditioned 

 camel will subsist on the absorption of 

 its fatted hump. The tail of the frog, 

 which has just completed its last met- 

 amorphosis, does not pass off by 

 atrophy, but is really a wise provision 

 for the creature's support by absorp- 

 tion, during the few days which con- 

 stitute the most critical portion of its 

 life. 



This fact I have demonstrated else- 

 where by observation from the spawn 

 to maturity. But in these and similar 

 cases, the animal is simply nourished 

 by some superabundance in itself. 

 Ruling out lactation, and the placen- 

 tial phenomena of gestation, is there 

 any instance in which, as a normal 

 fact, the young feeds upon the parent.' 

 This fact, seemingly so anamalous, I 

 assert for the Hippocampus, although 

 its physiology. I may not be able ta 

 explain The male Sea Horse not 

 only hatches the eggs, in the embry- 

 onal pouch, but also feeds the young, 

 by allowing them to absorb a portion 





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